Warmest Hearts in the Coldest of Places
by CassieAnne97potatoes
Summary: After negotiating for a plot of land for the homeless Asgardians, they arrived safely on Midgard, or Earth as the humans call it. The first thing they noticed was the frigid temperature.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer, I do not own any part of this series, this fanfiction was made so I do not have ideas swirling around in my head.

. chapter 1

After negotiating for a plot of land for the homeless Asgardians, they arrived safely on Midgard, or Earth as the humans call it. The first thing they noticed was the frigid temperature. Unlike Earth, Asgard is, or rather was, warm all year round. There might have been a random wind bringing cool temperatures, but they only lasted for a few minutes and then those winds kept going to the next plane.

This was just downright cold.

They decided to use the ship for shelter until they could build more agreeable homes. It wasn't bad, but it was made mostly of metal, which meant that while it was quick to heat up, it was also quick to cool down. The only ones who went outside were those able enough to help with the building of their new village. Children stayed inside and continued to learn about their lost home, and the oldest wrote down every detail they could remember, battles lost included.

Everyone helped where ever they could. Bruce was probably the only reason no one has died thus far, having worked with this sort of thing in the past, he knew how to keep people's spirits up and how to keep them living, even in the bleak weather.

"How long do the winters here last? How many weeks?" Thor asked.

"We're halfway through December, technically, winter hasn't even started yet." Bruce replied. "The average winter lasts about three to four months, longer in some places."

"Months?" He was shocked, "You mean that it will be frozen here for over one hundred days?"

"It was like this when we got here, implying that it was frozen before we got here, if we're lucky, it'll be gone by the middle of March."

"When is that?"

"In three months."

"Is there nothing to do but keep warm during this period of coldness?" He asked.

"Many are activities to do with children, but there are plenty of things that we humans do during this time." Bruce grabbed a sheet of paper to write out a list. "When it's cold, and there's snow on the ground, we make snow men, snow angels, igloos, walls, tunnels, there's snow ball fights, sledding, ice skating, and snow-boarding. There's a few holidays coming up, too, the major ones being Christmas* and New Year's."

"Describe these activities and holidays."

"Well, I hope you're listening well, because there is plenty of stuff to go through."

.mini time skip

Loki was walking back to the ship with both arms full of fallen sticks to be used as kindling. He sighed out a shiver, being a frost giant did not guarantee immunity to the cold. Having been raised on Asgard, that probably made things worse. It's exactly the same as taking some wild beast, raising it to be a pet, then letting it go in the wild after it's reached maturity, it won't know what to do nor will it understand why food is not handed to it daily. He pushed those thoughts aside, not wanting to make it sound like he is the same as a beast.

Something hit the back of his head, he turned to look at what it was. There was nothing but some snow in his hair. Odd, he swore that the snow was thrown at him. Perhaps it could have fallen off a branch, but there was more force behind it than Midgard's force of gravity could have allowed. He shrugged it off, not wanting to worry himself over some snow.

Smack. The snow exploded upon impact when it hit the side of his face.

He scanned the entire area with his magic and immediately dropped the sticks. He should have known that Thor would be only one to throw something at him. "I know you're there."

Thor stepped out from behind a tree, but not without throwing another ball of snow.

Loki blocked it with ease. "Why are you throwing snow at me?"

"Banner said that snowball fights are common in the winters here, he also mentioned many other things that they do to pass the time."

"Snowball … _fights_?"

"Yes, he said that these happen when two or more people gather and throw snowballs at each other for fun."

"Of course, you of all people would be interested in these snowball fights." Loki stated as he started to regather the dropped sticks.

"But it's the only entertainment I have." Thor scooped up some snow.

"You just said that he told you other ways to pass the time, you can do those instead."

"But I like throwing things."

Loki tossed a stick to Thor, who dropped the nearly competed snowball in order to catch it. "Then perhaps you can throw this back to the ship for me."

"You're no fun."

"Why are you here? Surely you didn't come all the way out here just to throw snow at me."

"It's been a week since we've been here, and I haven't really spoken to you, and well," he paused for a moment, "I wanted to know how you're faring."

"Mentally, I hardly have time to think about anything, and I'm usually too tired by the end of the day to even remember falling asleep. Physically, I don't even know where begin. My hands are numb from picking branches through the snow. My throat hurts from breathing in this cold air. My legs are burning from shuffling through this snow. And my face stings from this wind."

"Just about everyone has said that, including myself. I'm going to everyone with outside duties a day of rest tomorrow."

"It's about time."

"It's only been a week."

"That's too long without a break from this weather."

"Just be grateful I decided to give a break at all, as king, I could make you work as long as I want."

"Yes, and then we'd revolt, and I'd tell Banner to tell the rest of the Avengers that you're being unfair to your own people."

"You wouldn't do that, I'm your brother."

"You're right, I'd probably drive you to make everyone work harder, which would cause them to throw you off your high throne, which would get the attention of the Avengers, then they'd fight you. The remainder of the Asgardians know that I used Odin's image after I was declared dead, and they know that during that time Asgard was prospering. I would end up taking the throne by default due to your inability to rule."

Thor stopped and looked at him. "Please tell me that was a joke."

"Sorry, its bit a habit for my mind to think like that."

"You could try to break the habit."

"You try breaking an 800-year-old habit."

"800 years?"

"Mother taught me how to think in a way that turns every bad event into my favor."

"And that includes every time you stabbed me, cheated me, and tricked me?"

"Well, that's just my nature. It's the same as how you always charge into many situations with no plan and fall for the simplest of tricks."

"I do not."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Not even a minute ago you thought that I was scheming a way to take the throne."

"Okay, I'll give you that."

"And each time your plate cleared when you turned your head for a second at the grand table."

"That was you? I thought it was just the servants taking my plate."

"We were placing bets to see when you'd catch on, but you never did, which is exactly what Lady Sif predicted."

Thor furrowed his eyebrows, "When you said 'we', do you mean you, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three?"

"No, I meant 'we' as in nearly everyone who knew that I could use magic. Father, Mother, the servants, Heimdall, even the guards."

"I'm glad you were all making fun of how non-observant I was."

"You're welcome."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer, I do not own any part of this series, this fanfiction was made so I do not have ideas swirling around in my head.

. chapter 2

Heimdall had decided that instead of just standing in one place like he would have done on Asgard, he put his muscles to use and helped build the housing structures. Standing still outside and keeping watch was one of the fastest ways to freeze to death. Sure, standing still allowed him to see more, but survival was key, and he couldn't let his people down, they had already lost so much

His job was to drive wooden posts into the ground and move lumber to those spots so that they could be ready to be put together. Moving wood was easy, heavy lifting, but easy. Putting wood into the ground, however, was not. He used one of the metal beams from the ship to break through the solid ground before trying to put the wood into it.

His days on Midgard started as any other person: he woke up, he put off getting out of the make shift bed in favor of being warm, he reluctantly sat up and went to the dining hall. After he finished his breakfast, he would finish getting ready for the day.

Today would be no different.

Val walked up to him, "Thor said anyone with outside jobs could have the day off."

Nevermind.

"Does that include yourself?"

"Even us hunters need a break. Want some?" She offered a mostly filled bottle.

He stared at the bottle briefly, contemplating whether he should have some or not. Since he'd been appointed the position of guarding the Bifrost, he'd not had a sip of alcohol, too worried that something might happen while drunk. Not that he should let down his guard on Midgard, but it had been so long since he had the opportunity to drink, and even with the threat of chaos on the horizon, it would be a while before anything actually approached this planet. "Sure." He grabbed the bottle and downed a few mouthfuls. "I needed that."

"We all could use some alcohol in this cold, it won't do anything in terms of warming us up, but it'll make the day pass faster."

"Do you have anything planned other than drinking?"

"Believe it or not, I'm interested in those things that Thor keeps babbling on about."

"You plan on seeing their worth?"

"Yep, from what I've heard, the humans have come up with tons of crazy things."

"They have to." He smiled. "Their lives are so short that if they spent their days like we did, they would die before ever reaching any sort of fulfillment."

"I guess it makes sense, but you'd think that they'd want to maintain as much peace as they can in their lives, not spending their tiny lifespans seeking out things that could potentially kill them." She took a large swig of alcohol.

"I've watched the humans from afar for a long time and I can tell you this, they seek out things that we wouldn't consider for the sake of having a momentary thrill. Just four years ago, a human woman by the name of Jane Foster, Thor's girlfriend at the time, had stumbled fallen into one of the planes created by the Convergence, contracted something from before Odin's time, and Thor had brought her to Asgard to see what they could to do. When she arrived, the first thing she said was that she wished to travel via rainbow bridge again."

She did a slight chuckle, "I know full grown men that dislike traveling that way, I can't imagine that a human would find enjoyment in it."

"Like I said, they find pleasure in things that take their breath away."

She got up to leave. "Interesting, I'll talk more about it with Thor. Later." She left.

. a few moments later

"Thor, do you have a moment?"

"I do, but not for long, I'm on my way to where the children are, to tell them tales of my own childhood."

"I wanted to know more about what humans do for fun out here."

"Just because I lived here for a few months doesn't make me an expert. Talk to Banner, he's a human."

"Wait a minute." She stopped him. "He's the Incredible Hulk, he was on Surtur for nearly two years, and you said he was a friend from work, how can he be a human?"

"That's right, he is a friend from work, he's a part of this group we have to defend this planet. I don't know all the details, but I guess he was subjected to a good amount of radiation, which is the cause of that other side of him."

"Radiation from what? There's nothing in this part of the galaxy that produces harmful radiation."

"Actually, the humans have created their own radioactive waves. They use them in many different situations, mainly medical and research purposes, to see how certain things react to one another. The use them to see damage done to the body and to rid it of certain diseases. Banner is known for his work with gamma rays, which is how he ended up like that."

"I didn't know humans were that advanced."

"You learn a few things about them after working with them for a while." He came to the doorway, "If you want to know more about humans, talk to Banner, he'll tell you what you want to know."

. after some more running around

"Will you give me the answers I'm looking for?" she said after slamming the door open.

"Depends on what you want." He said.

"First off, why didn't you tell me that you were human?"

"You're still trying to wrap your mind around the fact that the other guy is an activated state, and that this is what I look like normally, if I had told you that the other guy was just a really odd-looking human, you would have slapped me."

"Fair enough."

"And your second question?"

She pulled up a stool. "Thor told me to ask you about more information on what you humans do for fun in these temperatures. What are they?"

"Here, I've already written it down, you can read over it. I knew there would be more that would come to me wondering about that, so I wrote down everything I could remember."

She read through it quickly, and a couple of words and its definition caught her eyes "You've got to be kidding me, your people actually go up mountains only to fall down on it on a small board?"

"It's not usually on a mountain, most people stick to gentle slopes, only professionals do that sort of stuff. If I were to try that, I'd fall over trying to secure my feet into place. If I have to go down a hill in that manner, I'll stick to a sled. If you look here, it's a significantly larger board, plastic, or metal, and you sit on it at the top of a hill or something, give yourself a push until you start going down the hill. That's the only way I would go down a hill because it decreases my chances of faceplanting into the snow, I'm not that agile of a person so it works best for me. You, on the other hand, are extremely good with hand-eye-foot coordination, so you might want to give it a try."

She shook her head. "Your people are weird, coming up with all these things that could kill you if you make a simple mistake."

"And I'm the only one you've met so far, wait until you meet the rest of them."


	3. Chapter 3

The children had finally been allowed to play in the snow, but not without many layers and a watchful eye. Banner was with them and showed them how to make snowmen by creating snowballs and then rolling them into the size they preferred.

Some of them threw handfuls of snow at each other, because it's light enough where it won't hurt upon impact, until Thor saw what they were doing and joined in with his newfound love for snow balls. He had the upper hand until he accidentally hit one of the mothers that was standing on the side.

Oops.

One Thor vs an army of pissed mothers. It was clear which side was winning. One right after another, he was pummeled with snowball from head to toe. The sight of women throwing snow at Thor got the attention of many of those who were working outside, and soon enough there was a massive snowball fight between anyone and everyone. Those working inside the ship saw that there was a fight and joined the fight for the sake of fighting.

Thor took the chaos as an opportunity to throw all the snowballs he wanted to at his brother as soon as he saw him. After the fifth snowball to the head, Loki grabbed the snow at his feet and whipped it at his brother.

It didn't take long until everyone was wet from the snowballs and they had to head inside before anyone got sick. They divided into the two biggest rooms, women and girls in one and men and boys in the other, stripped down to nothing, and stayed like that until their clothes dried.

Nobody really minded, modesty wasn't the biggest of their concerns, and there were plenty of blankets, one blanket could cover three or four people, so it wasn't like everyone was huddled close to each other in the heated rooms naked. As long as they were able to get out of the cold and thoroughly warm up, everyone was happy.

Of course, if it wasn't for Thor trying to have some fun they wouldn't be in this situation, but it was overlooked. Everyone enjoyed the snowball fight even with its consequences. It was one of those things they would probably end up doing again because it brought a smile to everyone's faces.

"I don't know if it was one of your best ideas, but the snowball fight did allow for one thing to become clear, you know how to get everyone's mind off the cold and focus on something else." Bruce said to him quietly. "You'll be a good leader for them."

"Thanks, but you deserve credit, too. If not for you, we would have lost some to the cold and would be miserable in this weather."

"I'd rather do this type of work than what they want me to do."

"By they, do you mean the other Avengers, SHEILD, or the someone else?"

"Everyone, if I'm not doing lab work, then they want me locked up, so they can monitor the other guy."

"I see." He started to trace the patterns of the blanket with his finger. "Well, you're different in your neutral state, he is, ah," he closed his mouth thinking about how to word his next statement, "well, there's many differences between you and him."

"Besides the extreme strength that comes with turning into a big green monster."

"When he takes over, it's not just your looks that change, he has an ego as big as him and loves tearing apart those who think they're better than he is."

"So he's just like you then." Bruce laughed at his own statement.

"I'm not that bad."

"Did he do anything completely out of character beside the ego part?" Bruce asked, wanting to know more about what the Hulk is like when he's not in a fight of some sort.

"He loved attention, embraced the sound of people cheering for him in the stadium, whatever he got had to be top of the line products, and he," Thor cringed at the memory, "had no shame in showing everything."

"Everything?"

"Yeah, I was in the room he used while resting, which was very extravagant for Sakaar, had shelves of trophies and alcohol, anyway he was bathing, and then he got out, and joined me as I stood next to the window." Thor looked down before he looked up with a deep breath. "He never bothered to cover himself up until after we were done talking"

Bruce was speechless, blinking, trying to process what he just heard. "So, he was…"

"Yep."

"Next to a window."

"Uh huh, you could see a good portion of the city from that window."

Bruce rubbed his temples, he couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that the Hulk stood next to a window naked. "Sorry you had to see that."

"Well I'm sure the ladies had a nice view, seeing their favorite champion in his full glory, in fact, they'd probably pay to see that."

"You're not making it any better on my end." He frowned more and more as he continued to think about it. "I'll be scarred for life just thinking about it, and I was technically there for it."

"At least I told you that it happened, I could have just let you be oblivious to your actions."

"You should have let me be oblivious to my actions, I don't want to be known for embarrassing stuff like that."

"It's not that all embarrassing. It's all a part of embracing your body with a sense of pride because no one else will ever be like you."

"But I had no clothes on."

"You have no clothes on right now."

"At least I'm covered up with a blanket, which is your fault, by the way."

"How is that my fault?"

"You started that stupid snowball fight."

Thor laughed, "You told me about snowball fights, so I thought I would start one."

"You would start any kind of fight if it has the word in it."

"I'm not going to try and deny that claim, I love fighting."

"I noticed."

After that they sat in a soothing silence in the company of one another, waiting for their clothes to dry so they could continue on with the day.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, they belong to Marvel (if you noticed, I forgot to put the disclaimer on the last chapter, my bad)

. chapter 4

"Is there a reason for the trees?" Valkerie pointed to the fir in the corner.

"I don't know what goes in inside his head, but I guess it's a holiday tradition here, and he wants to take part in it." One of men said.

"Another tradition? Are we to throw trees at one another like we do the snow."

"I think these are just for decoration."

"Well, when he's done decorating, we can use them for siding."

"Oh, why not let him have fun, he's doing the best with what he has." The man said. "I see no problem with it, the green of the trees adds color to the interior. It's looks better than that boring grey metal, smells better, too."

She scoffed at his notion. Trees should be used for building houses and for fire, not for decoration.

.

"That looks better." Thor grinned as he moved the last tree into place. His next goal was to find his brother, which if he remembered his brother's schedule right, he was clearing snow away from the main working area.

With those thoughts in mind, he headed outside again.

He moved three good sized logs to splitting area before seeing his brother.

"Loki, I have a job for you."

"No." Loki did not want anything to do with his brother, especially after that fight, since no one bothered to tell him that the end result of a snowball fight was being chilled to the bone. "I'm busy."

"But it's really important."

Loki ignored him as long as he could, which wasn't very long because Thor kept getting in the way. "I'll be done in about five minutes, three if you sit over there."

Thor did as he told, there was no one else but Loki who could do the job, and he didn't want to ruin the chance that his brother would just say no before he told him of it.

"Alright, I'm done." Loki made his way to where Thor was. "Now, what ridiculous task do you need me for."

Thor smiled and motioned him to follow him. Thor led Loki into a room with a tree in it.

"What can you do with your magic?"

"Besides creating images of myself, turning inanimate objects into moving ones for a period of time, and altering the shape of something? What do you want me to do?"

Thor pulled out a wooden ball from behind the tree. "Can you make something like this?"

"Why?" Loki tried to read his brothers face for any hint as to what his brother was thinking, but the only thing he could see was a stupid grin.

"So the tree isn't just green, we'll need lots of red and gold, and maybe some white. Oh, and a star to attach at the top."

"That's a lot to ask for."

"You the only one here who can use magic well, there are others, but none as good as you when it comes to applying it on a large scale."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Great! I need that done to every tree inside here; there's one in most of the rooms."

"Then here is a list of everything else I have been assigned to do today."

"Alright."

"Is there anything else you want me to do to the trees?"

"Can you put some sort of design like this on the ornaments using the colors I mentioned?" he held out a sheet of paper with three different patterns,

"You do know you're really asking a lot, right?"

"Can you?"

"Yes, it's very basic work. How many on the trees do you want?"

"Enough to mostly cover them, but I don't want them on the trees just yet, I want the children to be able to put them on."

"Are you willing to do a day's worth of work of my work for me to do this?"

"Yes, I already said that, do you not trust me?"

"Just making sure. Before you go, is this for the Christmas thing you were talking about?"

"Yeah, although we might keep the decorations up longer than what most people do, just because it's so boring inside the ship."

"I'll talk to Banner to have his thoughts on this whole thing."

.

Loki found the whole decorating thing quite enjoyable, he was given permission to use his magic, and he was inside where it was out of the lip-splitting cold. After talking to Banner on how to approach the Christmas tree decorations, he grabbed enough wood to make the ornaments. The difference between here and Asgard when it came to working materials, was that Asgard had a large amount of metal and very little wood, and here on Midgard, there was an ample supply of both, and while he was used to altering metals, the wood here on Midgard could prove useful. On Asgard, he seldom bothered with anything made of wood, the abundance of wood here allowed him to notice the differences in different types of wood.

Because wood is an organic material, it allowed him to smoothly transition the stiff layers to a single layer in a sphere shape. Of course, because of the amount he was making, the at first easy task turned into a long, tedious, tiring one.

But when he was all done with the brightly colored spheres, complete with a hook to attach to the tree, he sat back and looked at his work with a small sense of pride. Of course, he would rather the trees be decorated by him, but at least it would give everyone an activity to do. Banner also mentioned that there were other decorations that these humans did for this holiday, and that is exactly what he was going to do next.

 **Sorry for the delay, its been crazy busy, I work at a Chocolate Shop and let me tell you, there is no season busier than the Christmas season. I will be able to put another chapter up tomorrow, so, with that in mind, see you then.**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Marvel, this is just a tiny fanfiction that deserves no such credit.

. chapter 5

Thor nearly fell over when he walked into the ship. There were bulbs and boughs lining the halls, tiny bells stringed up on every doorway, and ribbons of red striping the walls. It was amazing, that was the only word that came to his mind.

"LOKI!" Thor called.

"Yes?" He came out from behind the door Thor just opened.

"I thought I told you just the trees."

"Are you disappointed in my work?"

"No, Loki, this," he took another look around at the decorations, "this is amazing."

"I know."

"No seriously, I know you always like to show off when it comes to using your magic, but this is incredible."

"Creating something like this is very simple, I could probably do it in my sleep if not for the size of the ship."

Thor continued to admire all the decorations, "So what made you decide to do the entire ship, and how did you know about the rest of the Christmas decorations?"

"There are a few towns not terribly far from here, I merely cast an image of myself and based my décor off of many different styles located within those towns."

"Why?"

This made Loki pause. "I don't know, perhaps it was because I haven't used my magic for this sort of thing in a while, perhaps I was bored, or perhaps I wanted an excuse to be inside longer."

"You can just say you were in the Christmas spirit, there's nothing wrong with that."

"By the way, Thor," Loki turned into a room, "You do know that this Christmas is a religious holiday; I don't plan on involving our people with Midgardian religions and customs, and it wouldn't be right to celebrate for a reason we know not."

"I am well aware of that, but Banner told me that many people who are atheist, agnostic, or followers of other religions celebrate Christmas just because they can. I see nothing wrong with joining in with the majority of people."

"Well, even so that holiday is in two days, I don't see how you can pull it off."

"That doesn't matter, we'll celebrate it somehow."

Loki just smiled at his brother's optimism.

. nighttime

The rooms were left mostly empty so that everyone could join in with the small decorating process.

"Look at me, I'm Thor." A little boy held up one of the ornaments to their eye, pretending it was an eye-patch.

"Come on, big guy, we need to put it on the tree for us to admire." His caretaker smiled as she picked him up so he could put it up higher. "See, doesn't that look better."

"Uh huh. Why didn't we have any trees back home for us to decorate?"

"Asgard wasn't created to grow the massive amount of trees like Midgard is, so any trees that grew there was for the animals."

"But what about the animals here?"

Bless the innocent minds of children, "The animals here know not to live in the trees that might be cut down."

"Really?" Those little chocolate brown eyes grew, happy to learn that the tree dwelling animals were smart enough to stay away from those trees.

"Yep, the animals know everything there is to know about Midgard."

"Even though the humans are more advanced than them?"

She chuckled, "The humans seem more advanced, but everything in the universe has its own purpose, just look at birds. They cannot understand us for the most part, but that doesn't mean that they're not intelligent. Our hunters here use traps and machines to hunt for food, but birds are smart enough to get their food without working hard for it."

"That's really cool." The boy wasn't really paying attention meaning of the words, what little boy does, but whatever she was saying was neat, birds have their own way of living, just like everyone else does.

.

Unfortunately, by the time the decorating process was done, it was time for bed. Which may have seemed like a problem, having been too involved with the decorating to actually consider sleep, but after settling into the make-shift beds, and dimming out the lights, everyone was fast asleep with the smell of forest and fir trees in the air.


End file.
